He said he wanted me to play a part, and he's done that a couple of times before but I haven't been available because I was making my own pictures.
He was a psychotic. He was a borderline psychotic. He was a terrific, sensational actor, with a magical screen presence, you couldn't keep your eyes off him, but he was paranoid. He was sure everybody was out to get him.
He's very alive in a scene. He's a very good actor to act with. Even though through most of the picture he's blind, there are many places early in the picture I got to be with him before he was blind. Like convincing him in the office to do the picture.
I don't know a lot of agents like Al Hack.
I long for the days when grosses were not even known. There was no weekend competition.
I said, "Can I help you?" and he said, "I'm supposed to stay here until you read it and take it back." Which he did!
It always amazed me that he was able to do it, and that Orson Welles was able to do it. I never understood it because the talents are absolutely opposite - polar opposites.
It perhaps has a chance, a commercial chance, this film. It's funny, it's charming, the idea is original, it's unusual and it makes fun of the movie industry in a way that it needs to be poked fun at.
It's kind of interesting to be a director who is all of a sudden being an actor playing an agent. This is my whole world!
It's sad - it's sad for us old enough to remember when directors ruled, and films were substantially better than they are today. But it's hard to argue with those kinds of grosses.
It's the unusual leading man. Most of the Hollywood leading men are powerful and capable and strong, heroes. He has this vulnerability, he's fragile, he struggles to find a way to live from day to day that we can identify with, that we can understand.
It's very difficult to break into motion pictures, but it's oddly easier for directors today because of independent films and cable, who have inherited for the most part those films of substance that the studios are reluctant to finance.
It's very exciting to relinquish control, to be an actor. To be in a film with Woody was of course irresistible.
No one turns down a film with Woody; it's something everyone wants in their career as an important moment. He's such a comedic genius, without question, so I was thrilled.
Now a movie goes out to two, three thousand theaters and by Friday night at 10 o'clock they know if you are in or out. That desperate competition is, I think, horrendous. It's awful.
The problem becomes one of relinquishing all judgmental factors, and just going for the experiential effect. It's not easy, but once you have relinquished it, it's a relief.
There are a lot of memories that are very... nutritious. I've had a very fortunate career. I've worked with practically every icon you can think of.
There are always at least five good films at the end of the year to get nominated, but generally speaking nowadays, it's more of the independent films that are recognized.
There's evidence of a social decline in direct proportion to technology and the industrialization of the motion picture industry.
We did the first scene and they turned to me like teenagers, looked at me for approval. And here I was, I must have been 30 at the time, and I thought, "My God they NEED me."
Well you know, Woody doesn't rehearse, as opposed to my own method of directing where I really work with actors around a round table for weeks, examining the values of the material, so his technique is very different.
Well you're talking about a long career, a lot of movies, a lot of stars. I guess working with Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn was a great privilege.
When you're acting on a picture, hard as it may be, you have to abandon all sense of control, all directorial judgment.
Yes, there are directors I admire, the mavericks. Altman. There are many good directors.
You don't improvise. Well, you might improvise in a moment, trying to find something but for the most part everything is written by Woody, every word.
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